Curated News: Staff Picks

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The seemingly three-dimensional “Cosmic Cliffs” showcases Webb’s capabilities to peer through obscuring dust and shed new light on how stars form. Webb reveals emerging stellar nurseries and individual stars that are completely hidden in visible-light pictures. This landscape of “mountains” and “valleys” is actually the edge of a nearby stellar nursery called NGC 3324 at the northwest corner of the Carina Nebula. So-called mountains — some towering about 7 light-years high — are speckled with glittering, young stars imaged in infrared light. A cavernous area has been carved from the nebula by the intense ultraviolet radiation and stellar winds from extremely massive, hot, young stars located above the area shown in this image. The blistering, ultraviolet radiation from these stars is sculpting the nebula’s wall by slowly eroding it away. Dramatic pillars rise above the glowing wall of gas, resisting this radiation. The “steam” that appears to rise from the celestial “mountains” is

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President Biden unveiled the image of galaxy cluster SMACS 0723, known as Webb’s First Deep Field, during a White House event on Monday, July 11. NASA and its partners will release a series of Webb's first full-color images and data, known as spectra, Tuesday, July 12th during a live NASA TV broadcast.

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The first ever exoplanets were discovered 30 years ago around a rapidly rotating star, called a pulsar. Now, astronomers have revealed that these planets may be incredibly rare.

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Triptans, a commonly prescribed class of migraine drugs, may also be useful in treating obesity, a new study by scientists at UT Southwestern suggests. In studies on obese mice, a daily dose of a triptan led animals to eat less food and lose weight over the course of a month, the team reported in the Journal of Experimental Medicine.

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People consistently underestimate how much others in their social circle might appreciate an unexpected phone call, text or email just to say hello, and the more surprising the connection, the greater the appreciation, according to research published by the American Psychological Association.

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Researchers at Saint Louis University's School of Medicine, in collaboration with Arrowhead Pharmaceuticals and Takeda Pharmaceuticals, report the first effective drug to treat a rare, genetic liver disease that formerly could only be treated with a liver transplant.

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New research led by the University of South Australia shows that fatty foods may not only be adding to your waistline but also aggravating Alzheimer's disease, and causing depression and anxiety.

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The Swedish Parliament recently presented its ambition to drastically reduce number of wolves in Sweden – from approximately 400 down to approximately 200. Scientists are now reacting to this goal. In a letter published in Science 18 researchers from 5 countries warn that such a cull would further threaten this already highly vulnerable population.

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Scientists have unearthed a treasure trove of artifacts along Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula. Learn what researchers have discovered about the ancient Maya people and their relationship with this hidden stretch of coast.

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Scientists have long puzzled over the gap in the fossil record that would explain the evolution of invertebrates to vertebrates. Vertebrates, including fishes, amphibians, reptiles, birds, mammals, and humans, share unique features, such as a backbone and a skull. Invertebrates are animals without backbones.

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With energy costs rising, and the rapidly emerging effects of burning fossil fuels on the global climate, the need has never been greater for researchers to find paths to products and fuels that are truly renewable.

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How often do stars live alone? For brown dwarfs — objects that straddle the boundary between the most massive planets and the smallest stars — astronomers need to uncover more examples of their companions to find out. Ace citizen scientist Frank Kiwy has done just that by using the Astro Data Lab science platform at NSF’s NOIRLab to discover 34 new ultracool dwarf binary systems in the Sun's neighborhood, nearly doubling the number of such systems known.

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For the first time since the ban on whaling, large groups of southern fin whales documented in the Antarctic.

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Lithium extraction from the deep sea, overfishing of deeper-water species, and the unexpected ocean impacts of wildfires on land are among fifteen issues experts warn we ought to be addressing now.

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Bioengineers at the University of Notre Dame have shown that a new strategy can restore damaged stem cells and enable them to grow new tissues again.

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University of Florida scientists found that gardening activities lowered stress, anxiety and depression in healthy women who attended twice-weekly gardening classes.

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Roasting green chile is a cultural touchstone in New Mexico, but burning propane to roast the peppers leads to a seasonal emission of approximately 7,800 metric tons of carbon dioxide — the equivalent of driving 1,700 cars for a year.